In an op-ed published in The Hill, I criticized Democrats for calling to “Save Democracy” even as they failed to embrace it in the domestic electoral process. Here, I pick up where that essay left off and examine another aspect of Democratic hypocrisy: foreign policy.
Democratic leadership’s position on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians provides a deeper glimpse into the party’s internal contradictions.
Many top Democrats have supported Israel unflinchingly since its founding and continue to do so amid the current Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
This steadfast loyalty persists even as much of the world recognizes that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians—long before October 7—amounted to apartheid. Apartheid is a crime against humanity, one that the international community once condemned South Africa’s government for before its fall in the early 1990s. Organizations such as B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights NGO, have now made that same charge against Israel.
Former President Joe Biden once berated Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, for the administration’s policy of “constructive engagement” with South Africa’s apartheid regime, calling apartheid “repugnant” and “immoral” and voicing strong support for the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.
As a student at Occidental College, former President Barack Obama called for the college to divest from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa.
And yet, when it comes to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians—which leaders from Nelson Mandela to Desmond Tutu have explicitly compared to apartheid—neither Obama nor Biden has shown that same moral conviction.
Mandela, speaking as president in 1997, declared that “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
If he could see the kinship between the two struggles from Pretoria, what excuse do Democratic leaders in Washington have for pretending they cannot?
Much of the Democratic leadership continues to back Israel’s current campaign despite South Africa, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and an independent UN commission accusing Israel of the “crime of crimes”—genocide. Still, many Democrats maintain that support even as several nations – including the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia—have recently moved to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Apartheid and genocide are the antithesis of democracy. Yet when it comes to Israel, many Democrats remain unwilling to acknowledge this simple truth.
Prominent Democratic figures such as Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and California Governor Gavin Newsom—both of whom have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and whom some voters have hoped might lead the charge to save democracy at home—have yet to denounce Israel for these human rights violations. Neither politician has explicitly used the words ‘genocide’ or ‘apartheid’ in their speeches. Even former Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t dared utter them. Perhaps Pritzker’s reticence is unsurprising, given his past role on the national board of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Newsom, in a recent interview, was evasive when AIPAC was brought up; Harris, meanwhile, has maintained close ties with the organization.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen.Bernie Sanders I-Vt. are two notable exceptions to this trend among high-profile Democrats. Both have accused Israel of engaging in genocide and have refused AIPAC money. Yet neither sits comfortably within the Democratic mainstream.
When we look at the congressional voting record, the picture becomes even clearer. A majority of Senate Democrats voted in favor of Senator Sanders’s July 2025 resolutions to block U.S. arms sales to Israel. However, 19 Senate Democrats—including Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif.—voted to keep arming Israel, despite the mass violence, starvation, and killing of journalists and aid workers witnessed daily on social media and television. Senators Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. missed both votes. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has reaffirmed his strong support for Israel, repeatedly calling the U.S. commitment “ironclad” and opposing every proposal to condition U.S. aid on Israel’s conduct. It’s difficult here, too, to dismiss the influence of AIPAC and similar groups; each of the members mentioned has reportedly taken donations from them.
When Democratic leaders vote, act, and speak this way—allowing human-rights abuses to continue, taking donations from powerful lobbies and refusing to call out clear violations—they forfeit any moral authority to claim the role of defenders of democracy. A politics that tolerates the mass destruction of a people cannot credibly claim to stand for democratic values—or be trusted to defend them, abroad or at home. It should be no surprise, then, that so many voters have turned away from the Democrats.
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